AUTHOR ARCHIVES

Charles S. Clark

Charles S. Clark joined Government Executive in the fall of 2009. He has been on staff at The Washington Post, Congressional Quarterly, National Journal, Time-Life Books, Tax Analysts, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, and the National Center on Education and the Economy. He has written or edited online news, daily news stories, long features, wire copy, magazines, books and organizational media strategies.

November 1, 2017
In a follow-through on one of the 115th Congress’s rare bipartisan initiatives, key House and Senate members on Tuesday unveiled a bill to implement recommendations of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, which issued its congressionally mandated report on Sept. 7. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.,...

November 1, 2017
As Congress’s nonpartisan auditing arm, the Government Accountability Office for nearly a century has enjoyed access to agencies’ staffs for interviews and documents that facilitate the watchdog’s work evaluating spending and programs. But in two recent reports, sober-toned GAO narrators described how Trump administration officials took the unusual step of...

October 31, 2017
FROM NEXTGOV
Emily Murphy, the longtime congressional staff procurement specialist who is President Trump’s nominee to lead the General Services Administration, won approval on Monday night from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In a business meeting held off camera near the Senate floor, the senators on the panel unanimously...

October 31, 2017
Emily Murphy, the longtime congressional staff procurement specialist who is President Trump’s nominee to lead the General Services Administration, won approval on Monday night from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In a business meeting held off camera near the Senate floor, the senators on the panel unanimously...

October 30, 2017
Ever since the 1995 terrorist bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, all agencies have been required to meet facility vulnerability standards based on risk assessments of such threats as shootings, arson, vandalism and explosions. But four agencies have fallen behind on keeping their countermeasures fully aligned with the...

October 27, 2017
In another sign of a fadeout of the four-year controversy over alleged political bias at the Internal Revenue Service, the Justice Department on Thursday announced that it had entered into settlements in two cases brought by conservative groups that claimed they were targeted for delays in their applications for nonprofit...

October 26, 2017
For more than two years, cashiered Pentagon inspector general employee John Crane has awaited judgment for his whistleblower case accusing his former bosses of burying important disclosures that should have been investigated by the Office of Special Counsel. On Oct. 11, that office, which is under acting leadership, sent him...

October 26, 2017
In another sign of shrinking authority for certain whistleblower officials in the Intelligence Community, a key hire for a deputy position at the IC inspector general’s whistleblower outreach operations learned this week that his long-in-the-works job offer was rescinded, Government Executive has confirmed. John Hickey, a longtime reprisal investigator in...

October 25, 2017
Internal Revenue Commissioner John Koskinen’s five-year appointment ends next month, and Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday could hardly contain their pleasure. “The only good news is that one element in this long sad chapter of John Koskinen as commissioner is coming to an end...

October 24, 2017
Three agency managers tasked with implementing President Trump’s push toward deregulation told Congress on Tuesday that White House executive orders have injected fresh motivation in their workforces. The mandated reviews of past rules to identify burdensome or outdated ones, they added, are driven largely by career subject-matter experts. With regulatory...